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Advice on finding a solid developer, team or company?

Looking for a developer, team or company to help with two redevelopment website projects that are slightly connected. LAMP, CSS, Javacript, design, good grasp of SEO and content writing and more required.

I tried some freelance sites with no success. I kept getting international responses despite specifying I needed USA. The few USAs I got seemed like they just subcontracted offshore.

Any advice to find someone here on the forum or a good way to find a company elsewhere? Is there a "reputation" lst here? I'll check

I basically have two web redevelopment projects that will require a great UI design, LAMP and more. One is nothing hugely challenging, the other is a bit challenging.

That's a very important question. Actually the quality of project fully depends on your choice of developer. The decision usually lies between freelancers and companies. We've designed infographic which helps you to choose while answering simple questions. Hope that will help.

That's a very important question. Actually the quality of project fully depends on your choice of developer. The decision usually lies between freelancers and companies. We've designed infographic which helps you to choose while answering simple questions. Hope that will help.

That was helpful, thanks. Now my problem is actually finding someone. I tried one freelance site with no success. I contacted dozens of companies and met with a few with no success. I'm having trouble finding someone who understands what we do and what we need. Even after a great deal of explanation and demonstration they can't seem to grasp our needs. Perhaps part of the problem is me but someone who is a good match will be able to work with this.

Are there any good resources to use to find solid web developers and/or web development companies?

Once you have the ideal situation for all of these factors then it should not be too difficult to get the perfect developer / team to handle any of your projects. To explain simply

Time Frame
You can have a great budget and a well written project scope however all of that would be useless with an unrealistic time frame. A good developer plans his time wisely and if he sees you are being too demanding / inflexible with the time after he have provided you with a detailed outline of how long the project would take, he may just skip over it because it causes major headaches down the line.

Cost / Budget
You can have months upon months to complete a project. In other words, time is not an issue for you. The project is well spelt out again with clear instructions on how to achieve what but your budget does not match up to the about of work this project requires. This is a huge indication of problems later down the road as well. A project which is not worth working on generally is frown upon. The cost of living / operational costs must be met for a developer / team for them to think the project is worth working on

Quality / Complexity of Project
This is mainly outlined within your project scope. If you do not have one especially for "large" projects usually raises red flags for developers. You must have a clear (or at least a near perfect) outline of what you would like achieved. It should be something well documented and standard for each developer you come in contact with. Based on your interactions with one developer, you can choose to update your project scope to ensure it is more clearly defined for the next one you move on to. If a developer does not know what he is required to do, you will most likely end up with work you did not expect. The project scope is like a road map a developer would follow to understand what is required of him and of you at times.

Thanks, I could use help writing a clear/near perfect outline. Any advice writing that? I have a long list but nothing quite clear or perfect.. Would like to get that. Once I do get there, what next? How do I find good, reputable companies? A google search lists all sorts of results that are inconclusive. I'd prefer to target quality companies with my needs rather than blast as many random companies as possible.

Thanks again for your advice.

Originally Posted by hostultimo

You should take 3 factors into consideration

1. Time Frame
2. Cost / Budget
3. Quality / Complexity of project

Once you have the ideal situation for all of these factors then it should not be too difficult to get the perfect developer / team to handle any of your projects. To explain simply

Time Frame
You can have a great budget and a well written project scope however all of that would be useless with an unrealistic time frame. A good developer plans his time wisely and if he sees you are being too demanding / inflexible with the time after he have provided you with a detailed outline of how long the project would take, he may just skip over it because it causes major headaches down the line.

Cost / Budget
You can have months upon months to complete a project. In other words, time is not an issue for you. The project is well spelt out again with clear instructions on how to achieve what but your budget does not match up to the about of work this project requires. This is a huge indication of problems later down the road as well. A project which is not worth working on generally is frown upon. The cost of living / operational costs must be met for a developer / team for them to think the project is worth working on

Quality / Complexity of Project
This is mainly outlined within your project scope. If you do not have one especially for "large" projects usually raises red flags for developers. You must have a clear (or at least a near perfect) outline of what you would like achieved. It should be something well documented and standard for each developer you come in contact with. Based on your interactions with one developer, you can choose to update your project scope to ensure it is more clearly defined for the next one you move on to. If a developer does not know what he is required to do, you will most likely end up with work you did not expect. The project scope is like a road map a developer would follow to understand what is required of him and of you at times.

To help you some more, Start by listing the features you would like to have for your site. Then provide examples of sites which have your functionality explaining to the developer each step you would like done. Since this is a redevelopment project then this process should be easy if you have the original scope of the first 2 projects. Just use those and expand the features from there. If you would like features removed from the redevelopment then simply omit them. One glaring issue I noticed is you stated this is a redevelopment of a site however you did not mention anything about design as well. Based on my experience, when a client comes for a redevelopment, they normally include redesign in there. This allows us to know the client is looking for some sort of rebranding for their company or online project. So my question is, Is this only a redevelopment project or are you doing some sort of rebranding which will entail an entire site makeover as well? Those are the sort of facts you need to put into your project scope because instead of only looking for a developer, you might also be needing a designer as well to get the look you want.

Originally Posted by jnmunsey

Thanks, I could use help writing a clear/near perfect outline. Any advice writing that? I have a long list but nothing quite clear or perfect.. Would like to get that. Once I do get there, what next? How do I find good, reputable companies? A google search lists all sorts of results that are inconclusive. I'd prefer to target quality companies with my needs rather than blast as many random companies as possible.

We would like to help you with the projects.
If you are interested, we could provide you with information about our company, our experiences and our completed projects.
Please feel free to contact me at anytime: duygu@sword-it.com
You can also visit our website : www.sword-it.com